The Evolution of Bipedalism, and Modern Evolutionary Mismatch w/ Daniel Lieberman

Hello, everybody! I am releasing an interview with the distinguished Dr. Daniel Lieberman. He is Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He studies and teaches how and why the human body looks and functions the way it does. He started his career studying the evolution of the human head, but is now more focused on the evolution of human physical activity, and how evolutionary approaches to activities such as walking and running, as well as changes to our body’s environments (such as wearing shoes and being physically inactive) can help better prevent and treat musculoskeletal diseases.  He’s the author of the books The Evolution of the Human Head, and The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease.

In this episode, the focus of our conversation is the evolution of human bipedalism. We talk about the evolutionary pressures behind it, the advantages it conferred to humans, the new challenges that it posed, and endurance running. In the second part of the interview, we talk about evolutionary mismatch, and the types of problems that we exposed our bodies to since the agricultural revolution, and the solutions we can develop.

https://youtu.be/jXoQr7JVaXo

Link to podcast version (Anchor): http://bit.ly/304gb3Y